All the world's a stage

It was all going perfectly. Ban had collapsed on schedule, his colleagues had brought him up to the medical bay, assisted by Cirean, and Lokin had ensured that he would be immobilised and unconscious for at least ten hours. He'd rigged the biosensors to show various electrolyte abnormalities causing heart rhythm problems, just in case any of Ban's co-workers were medically qualified. Whether they were or not, they'd been convinced by Lokin's genuine professionalism and left, believing that Ban was in good hands.

Twelve had accessed the escape pod circuits from engineering and set up all the ones nearest the medical bay as required. But as he was about to head up to rendezvous with the others, the ship's alarm sounded. Almost immediately there were several loud explosions and a shuddering throughout the ship as it was hit by missile fire.

The shields went up, but too late. Explosions continued, with the shrieking sound of tearing metal. The Captain's voice came over the intercom, warning everyone that the ship was under attack by two Republic cruisers and they were about to be boarded by Republic troops.

Lokin and Cirean looked at each other. "Damn the SIS", muttered Lokin. "Can't do anything with finesse, just fly in with full military invasion protocols, all guns blazing. Do they actually want this defector alive?"

Cirean's face was grim. "Maybe it's time to ensure that he isn't."

Lokin nodded. "But we'll leave it a few minutes. Twelve should be here shortly." As he said that, their implanted comlinks buzzed and Twelve said quietly, "Stay put, I'm on my way."

Lokin pondered for a moment. "On the other hand, just in case ..." He brought out a case of small ampoules and selected one, which he injected into the unconscious man strapped to the stretcher.

"One of your fancy poisons?" enquired Cirean.

"Yes, a good one, this. No visible effects at all for about twelve hours, while it's metabolised to the active form. Once it reaches therapeutic levels, unless the antidote is administered, he'll suffer a massive myocardial infarction, followed by irreversible ventricular fibrillation inevitably resulting in cardiac asystole."

Cirean grinned, checking her weapons. "A bolt through the head is quicker."

"But rather more noticeable, and possibly repairable. The beauty of this one", he threw the ampoule into the recycler, "is that the resulting heart attack looks entirely natural, so they'll treat it naturally, without realising that what they actually need to do is get the poison out of his system. And since plasma protein binding of the active metabolite is about 98%, with an excretion half-life of 12 days or so, they won't succeed in time, even if they identify it." He smiled benevolently.

"You actually enjoy this stuff, don't you?" They both chuckled. It was a question she'd asked many times before.

The explosions had stopped, but the sounds of fighting in the corridor had been coming ever closer, and at that moment a group of Republic troops burst into the medical bay.

Control, passion, diligence: these three principles shape your world.

Lord Scourge: To repeat a mistake and expect a beneficial outcome is a sign of insanity.

"On the floor, now!" the leader yelled at them, brandishing a blaster rifle, while behind him was a squad of another five or six with a mixture of rifles and assault cannons.

Lokin drew himself up to full height and looked down his nose at the trooper, slightly difficult as the trooper topped him by at least six inches. "How dare you? I am a physician, engaged in treating a patient, and this crew member is kindly assisting me."

The trooper's face was visible through the plexiglass of his helmet, and he looked a bit nonplussed, obviously not having expected any response other than instant terrified obedience. In that moment of hesitation Cirean threw a flashbang grenade into the middle of the squad followed by a spray of bolts from her rifle. They were knocked dizzy and blinded by the bright light and smoke, and none of them got up again. The leader wasn't blinded and had not been badly injured by the rifle fire, but was knocked off balance. Not giving up, he stumbled forward trying to bring his rifle to bear, and Cirean simultaneously shot him through the chest at close range and slipped her vibroknife through the joint at the base of his helmet into his throat. He collapsed, dead before he hit the floor.

Without needing to be told, Lokin was already out of the door, pushing the stretcher on its suspensors. Cirean followed him, dropping a corrosive grenade and an explosive probe on the downed squad for good measure.

They headed swiftly down the corridor towards the escape pods.

And came round the corner straight into a group of about thirty more Republic troopers, with several uniformed SIS agents.

Control, passion, diligence: these three principles shape your world.

Lord Scourge: To repeat a mistake and expect a beneficial outcome is a sign of insanity.

"Yes, a good one, this. No visible effects at all for about twelve hours, while it's metabolised to the active form. Once it reaches therapeutic levels, unless the antidote is administered, he'll suffer a massive myocardial infarction, followed by irreversible ventricular fibrillation inevitably resulting in cardiac asystole."

"Too much", was Cirean's muttered assessment to Lokin, who nodded with resigned agreement. They stopped and waited.

One of the SIS agents, a pale-skinned Zabrak who seemed to be in charge, came a little way towards them. "Cnoc Garbh, SIS. Just drop your weapons, if you would, please." He smiled, but only with his mouth, eyes remaining cold and watchful.

Cirean and Lokin complied, at least with their visible weapons.

"Excellent, thank you." Garbh moved forward a little more and looked down at the stretcher. "So, here's our defector, all nicely packaged up ready for us."

Several of the troopers had surrounded Lokin and Cirean and put their wrists in restraints. Then they stood back, waiting for further orders. Garbh stared at Lokin and Cirean. "The other researchers kindly told us he'd been brought up to the medical bays. And who might you two be?" he enquired.

Lokin stepped forward, in front of Cirean and blocking Garbh's view of her. "Dr Eckard Lokin, ship's physician", he said, assuming a pose of outraged bewilderment. "I really must protest. This man has severe electrolyte imbalances which are affecting his heart, and you are interrupting his treatment. Is this how the Republic treats people?"

"Come on, Doctor, or whatever you are", said Garbh, shaking his head. "We've accounted for all the medical crew on the Warhammer, and you aren't one of them." He looked back at one of the other agents, who had been scrolling through a datapad. The agent looked up and shook his head. Garbh looked back at Lokin. “Seems you aren't on any list at all, not crew or passengers. Maybe you'd like to give me your real name and who you are?”

Lokin continued his outrage. "You insult me, Mr Garbh. You have my name and I most certainly am a doctor on this ship. You may check my physician registration if you wish. The identity card is in my belt pocket, I would give it to you if my hands were free. I graduated nearly three years ago, and I would be happy to give you a few lectures to convince you, if I thought you would understand or appreciate them. As to not being on the crew roster, I have no control over administrative failures. But all of this is irrelevant, I really need to get back to treating my patient. Look at those biosigns, he's in serious danger of a severe cardiac event and he's sedated for his own comfort and safety. I have already had to remove him from the medical bay I was using because your troopers invaded it." Lokin was creating as much distraction as possible, knowing that Cirean would be sub-vocalising a report to Twelve through her implanted comlink.

"Oh, very well, I won't doubt you're a medic." Garbh smiled his non-smile again. "Or that you've made sure those monitors are showing exactly what you say they are. But you definitely are not part of the crew or a passenger on this ship. I'd be willing to bet good money that your lady friend there isn't either. You're Imperial Intelligence, and you wanted to get our defector away before I got here. It was obvious the Empire would try something."

Lokin glanced back at Cirean, who gave him the tiniest possible nod, letting him know that Twelve was fully aware of the situation. Continuing the distraction, Lokin glared at the agent. "You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. What are you going to do with us? And with this unfortunate man, whoever he is, who will be having a heart attack in the next few hours without urgent treatment." Despite the seriousness of their situation, he spared a moment for brief amused speculation about Garbh's reaction when the defecting administrator really did have a fatal heart attack.

"You'll all be coming with me." Garbh smiled, this time with satisfaction. "A good bag on this hunt, a defector with a lot of useful information and a couple of Imperial Intelligence agents too. Really hadn't hoped for that. I'm sure you'll all three be singing like sweet little birds once we get you to Coruscant."

Control, passion, diligence: these three principles shape your world.

Lord Scourge: To repeat a mistake and expect a beneficial outcome is a sign of insanity.

Their comlinks buzzed and Twelve said peremptorily, "Down, now!" As one, Cirean and Lokin dropped to the floor.

As they did so, a ventilation shaft grille above the Republic troopers burst open, and Twelve hurled several concussion grenades then dropped into the middle of them, simultaneously sending a wide spray of blasts from his rifle.

In a well practiced manouevre, Lokin rolled to put his wrists within reach of Cirean. Within seconds, she'd extracted a miniature EMP from the toolkit on his arm and released their restraints. Both of them grabbed their weapons from the floor.

Twelve was all but invisible in the middle of the mass of troopers. Ten or so were down or at least injured, but there were still way too many. Garbh was shouting over the chaos, "Don't kill him! Take him alive!"

For the moment, no-one was taking any notice of Lokin or Cirean. They downed three more troopers before the others realised they were being attacked from behind. But there were at least a dozen surging around Twelve. As they started forward, two or three bolts hit the right side of his chest simultaneously, penetrating his armour. There was a bright spray of blood.

"No!" Cirean almost screamed, but Twelve was up and shooting again. Through their comlinks he grunted "Code K, go."

Code K meant get out now, no questions. Cirean was still trying to push her way through the troopers, but Lokin grabbed her and pulled her back. Holding her tightly against him, he hit the overload button on his stealth generator and pushed her to the side, just as several bolts flew through the air where they'd been.

They had about 10 seconds. Pulling her with him, he moved at top speed past the mass of troopers still trying to take Twelve down - fortunately it was a wide corridor - round the corner and into the nearest maintenance shaft. His generator failed just as he pulled the hatch back into place.

"We have to go back!" Cirean was trying to push him aside and get the hatch open again.

"Not yet! We can't fight them all off. Let them capture him, then we'll break him out. That's the best we can do."

"You'd abandon him?!"

"No! Cirean, I know ..." He stopped. He did know, Cirean and Twelve had been falling for each other for months. But now wasn't exactly the time to discuss the reasons why she wasn't thinking straight. "I want to get him out too, but if we go back now, we'll just get ourselves caught, or killed. He gave us the opening and ordered us to get out, we're going to do that, then we'll come back for him."

"I suppose you're right." She sounded both angry and defeated, but stopped trying to open the hatch. He couldn't see, in the dark of the shaft, but he suspected she was crying.

There was a crackle through their comlinks, then they went dead. Either Twelve had deactivated his link, or, more likely, he'd been hit in the jaw and it had been damaged. Whichever it was, there could be no further contact with him. Cirean swallowed audibly but neither of them said anything. They both knew it was probably bad news.

The sounds of fighting continued for a short while, muffled by distance and the walls of the shaft, but no-one came near the hatch. Obviously no-one had noticed or tracked where Lokin and Cirean had gone yet. They had escaped, at least for now.

Finally the blaster fire and shouting stopped. Then Garbh's voice, barking orders, though they couldn't make out exactly what. A series of heavy feet tramped past their hiding place. Garbh's voice again: "Get the agent and defector to the Pride. Have a medic check them over. Then scan the Warhammer, track down the other two." More feet tramped past, fading into the distance.

There was silence in the darkness. Twelve was alive, but taken by the enemy.

Spoiler

Couldn't resist the LoTR quote

Control, passion, diligence: these three principles shape your world.

Lord Scourge: To repeat a mistake and expect a beneficial outcome is a sign of insanity.

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The statements and opinions expressed on these websites are solely those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, nor are they endorsed by Bioware, LucasArts, and its licensors do not guarantee the accuracy of, and are in no way responsible for any content on these websites.